


Holmes in Far Harbor

by kaelma



Series: Holmes in the Commonwealth [3]
Category: Fallout 4, Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, Diary/Journal, Family, Friendship/Love, M/M, Moral Dilemmas, POV First Person, Plot, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-05
Updated: 2018-09-05
Packaged: 2019-07-07 09:30:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 18,446
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15905562
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kaelma/pseuds/kaelma
Summary: This is part three of my "Holmes in the Commonwealth" series. I recommend you read parts 1&2 first. I also recommend playing the Far Harbor expansion before reading this to avoid spoilers, but it isn't necessary to understand the plot. If you want to avoid Far Harbor spoilers, you'll be able to skip this (with minimal confusion) once the series resumes in part four.





	1. The Nakano Case

A client arrived at the Agency while Valentine and I were at home. Ellie used her new Agency radio to call us over, protesting “You didn’t tell me you’d be home!” when I teased her for it. To be fair, we do often leave town without telling her anything.

The client was a fisherman named Kenji Nakano. He claimed to be a friend of Valentine’s, but was in too much of a hurry to wait for us. Valentine recognized the name, but was “fuzzy on the details.” However they knew each other, Mr. Nakano had left no information with Ellie, merely a plea that Valentine come see him at his cottage up north, as soon as possible. Ellie’s instinct was that this was a missing person case. She was right.

Kenji Nakano and his wife Rei have a daughter named Kasumi. They are isolated, the only people for miles in their coastal cottage, surviving off the ocean and limited trading. Kasumi had disappeared. The parents have very different ideas about their daughter; to Mrs. Nakano, Kasumi is a strong and independent young woman, perfectly capable of taking care of herself but also sensible enough to know better than to go off alone. Mr. Nakano, on the other hand, still sees her as his little girl, and was certain someone had kidnapped her.

Kasumi spent a great deal of time with her grandfather until he recently passed away. He taught her about machines, and she had recently built her own radio. After he passed, she focused on it, to her father’s confusion and perhaps disapproval. According to her project logs, she made contact with a colony of synths on an island even further north. She was starved for human connection, and they seemed interested in her as well. Further conversation led to her wondering about her own identity. Feelings of alienation were interpreted as innate ‘otherness’ as though there is some standard definition for “human being.” I doubt she is a synth, her parents are completely certain she isn’t, but Kasumi was not certain. And so, she left. She sailed for a port called Far Harbor, and from there she would make her way to the colony.

Mr. Nakano visited Far Harbor once when he was a boy, but his father hadn’t wanted to stay long. Something about the air being bad. No matter what waits on the island, we have to find Kasumi and see what all this is about. Mr. Nakano lent us one of his boats; the steering is automated and a guidance system is installed, which is fortunate as neither Valentine nor I are sailors. We used the radio to send a message to Ellie. She knows where we’re going, and she’ll tell Codsworth. Ellie and Piper will drop in from time to time to check on Shaun, though I know Codsworth will take good care of him. I also let Preston know the Minutemen are under his command until their wayward General returns.

As much as I hope to return to the Commonwealth as quickly as possible, every instinct tells me such hope is futile.


	2. Far Harbor

Far Harbor is built entirely upon a pier along the island’s coast. The landside border is secured by a tall wooden wall they call “The Hull.” The ‘bad air’ Kenji Nakano mentioned is the radioactive fog that permeates this place. In Far Harbor, it’s hardly noticeable. As one moves further inland, it becomes more severe. Our introduction to Far Harbor’s unique wildlife was quick upon arrival. Large humanoid salamanders and deep sea fish, called gulpers and anglers respectively, attacked the town along with the more standard mirelurks I’m familiar with.

The town defended, a woman called The Mariner thanked me for my help, and asked if I’d be willing to help her repair and reinforce the Hull. Apparently seeing to the town’s sole defense is entirely her duty, with no aid from the rest of the settlers. While the Far Harbor residents are hostile to “mainlanders”, The Mariner sees even her neighbors as outsiders. She was on this strip of dock first, and when the Fog forced the people on the island to the coast, she had no choice but to let them in, or watch them die. I agreed to find some tools to help, if I have a chance after finding Kasumi.

The person currently in charge, or at least that seems to have some sway over the general populace, is Captain Avery. She doesn’t share in her people’s distrust of mainlanders, as long as they don’t cause trouble, and told me that Kasumi had come through town and gone to the synth refuge; Acadia. She recommended I speak to an old hunter by the name of Longfellow. He knows where Acadia is, and has acted as a guide for travelers. We found him in the town’s only bar, The Last Plank. He wasn’t pleased with Captain Avery telling outsiders about him.

“I’m done leadin’ people to their deaths in the Fog. Last fella couldn’t keep up. Didn’t last five minutes.”

I wasn’t going to accept no for an answer. “Some parents are worried about their runaway daughter. She went to Acadia and I need to find her.”

“If someone’s headed for Acadia, there’s always a story. Yours worth dying over?”

“I’ve done a great deal more for a great deal less.”

“Clever with words, are ya?” He was amused, if nothing else. Then he leaned forward, his tone serious. “I can get you to Acadia, but you’ve got to listen to me. Go where I say. When I say it. Still won’t be easy. You stock up on your necessities, Rad-X and the like. Ammo, maybe a rocket or two. Worse things than Mirelurks in the Fog.”

“We’re as prepared as we’re going to be, under the circumstances.”

“Suit yourself,” he shrugged. “Let’s get going, then.”

As we left, he finally got a clear look at the man in the trench coat behind me. “Christ almighty, you’ve seen better days, haven’t ya?” No one had commented on Valentine’s looks before. Everyone had treated both of us with the same look of surprise, quickly covered with suspicion or dismissal. We weren’t anyone’s business, so they weren’t going to get involved by asking questions.

“You ain’t exactly a prize, yourself,” Valentine drawled.

Longfellow chuckled. “Least I don’t have to live with a face like that.”

“I’ll take a bit of mockery over stones thrown,” Valentine muttered as we left.

Longfellow made an approving noise. “Acadia’s beyond the Fog line. We’ll be taking the old mountain road.”

The salty old hunter is sensible, fond of drink, and an experienced survivor. He was impressed with how we handled ourselves against gulpers, large wolves, and trappers - humans driven mad by the Fog, more barbaric than raiders. Along the way we came upon a Children of Atom “preacher,” as he called her, and they made their dislike of each other clear. There’s a popular theory in Far Harbor that the Children have made the Fog worse in recent years. There is no proof, however, beyond circumstantial evidence. For their part, Far Harbor uses devices called “Fog condensers,” as do the synths in Acadia, to clear the air around the settlements. The Children of Atom see this as akin to blasphemy.

Acadia is inside a scientific observatory on a mountain. There are some basic fortifications surrounding it, but the settlement itself is within the building. When we arrived, Longfellow offered his services any time we might need them. I thanked him, and we went inside. It is not quite what I expect a sanctuary to look like… but then I’m likely biased. Consisting of dimly lit chambers of concrete and rust, the only real appeal of the place is that it is safe, which in this world is a valuable commodity indeed.

The first resident we met also happened to be the leader of the colony. He called himself Dima, and might have seemed like a mechanical Gen2 synth at first glance, but he was clearly not second generation. He spoke eloquently, for one, welcoming me to a place of peace where synth-kind would welcome me, as long as I welcomed them. His eyes were solid grey instead of glowing yellow, the skin more alabaster stone than ivory, but the face was undoubtedly similar. He looked like Valentine.

A series of tubes protruded from his back - no, more accurate is to say his back was a network of tubes, the entire torso and the back of his skull. He’d been sitting in a chair when we entered, which closer inspection revealed was designed for him to ‘plug into’ for lack of a better description. The screens of the terminals around the observatory were all lit, but blank.

My initial shock processed, I asked about Kasumi. He assured me she was here in Acadia, safe, and I could see her whenever I wished. He asked if I thought she was a synth… and Valentine suddenly spoke.

“We’re not answering any questions until you play straight with us.” He’d been behind me a distance and now came forward through the shadows into the light of the chamber. “Just who the hell are you, really? There’s only one synth with that kind of face and a mind of his own, and I only see him when I look in a mirror.”

Our host was stunned. “Nick!? It… it can’t be you…”

“Don’t give me that,” Valentine warned, angry and perhaps threatened. “What are you trying to pull? I’ve never seen you before in my life.”

Dima spoke carefully, “Please. If you’re willing to give me a chance, I can explain. This all started over a century ago, when we were first created… We were prototypes, Nick. The first synths capable of independent thinking and judgment.”

Valentine remained suspicious, but was listening. “Keep talking.”

“One of the Institute’s experiments had to do with how our brains could process personality. If we could handle individualized feelings and behaviors. I was allowed to develop mine based on experience. But with you, they wanted to try transferring an entire personality into you. It took several attempts before the personality imprint worked. I saw you wake up not knowing who or what you were so many times… I couldn’t let them do it to you anymore. We were the only two prototypes they made. I literally saw myself in you… You were my brother, Nick. I helped you escape the Institute. We left together.”

Valentine scowled, his response barbed, “If I were your brother, I’d remember!”

“That’s where you’d be wrong. This happened over a century ago. There's…” Dima hesitated, “there’s only so much memory that can fit into the prototype brains we have…”

“I’ve heard enough.” The only time I’ve seen him in such distress was the confrontation with Eddie Winter. I moved to his side, though I didn’t know how I could possibly help. “I think you and I need to talk about this,” he said softly. “Maybe not now, but…”

“We’ll talk later,” I promised.

Dima gently tried to assure Valentine that he was simply glad to see him, and would be there whenever he was ready to talk. The conversation returned to our original purpose - Kasumi Nakano. “I asked you before if you think she’s really a synth. If you could indulge me with an answer?”

“Why are you asking?”

“Because she came here with that very question, and the answer changes every part of her world. None of us take this transition lightly. She’s facing the possibility of her entire life being a lie.That someone stripped her very identity from her and made her into something she isn’t. I want you to understand that before you see her. She has a chance here to live as a synth. Not hiding. Not pretending to be something else.”

It was a difficult speech to swallow. Even if she were a synth, it wouldn’t change the fact that she is still her parent’s daughter… then again, I say this as a man whose son is a synth. Kasumi’s parents might not accept her if she decides that she is a synth. They might not even accept the slight possibility that she might be one. Should that be the case, Acadia would be a refuge.

Still. There’s something about Acadia that… sits poorly. Perhaps it’s because I’ve seen too many attempts at paradise go wrong. Dima has been alone on this mountain for a very long time. He has the other synths for company, of course, some limited interaction with the other people of the island, but his ideals and opinions come from a place of safety. He looks at the suffering of synths and knows he wants it to stop, but at the same time can he truly sympathize with the struggle they went through to reach this place? Does he know what he’s doing?

We met Acadia’s other two co-founders, Faraday and Chase. Faraday is the scientist responsible for most if not all of Dima’s modifications and maintenance, and is obviously smitten with the old synth. Chase was a Courser. She came to the island looking for a runaway, and found Dima instead. He convinced her to break from the Institute, and now she helps the synths she would have hunted come to Acadia.

Kasumi was on one of the lower levels. The conversation with her did nothing to soothe our suspicions of Acadia’s leader. She was repairing some machinery, excited to be able to put her skills to use, and shocked her parents had sent a pair of detectives after her. She came to try and make sense of her feelings, and she thinks the idea behind Acadia is a good one… but she also has doubts about what secrets might lurk in this place.

Faraday had asked for her assistance repairing the computers that store Dima’s memories. As any intelligent young woman might be, she was curious to see what a century’s worth of life experiences looked like. What she found instead were data models of what would happen if the Fog overtook the island, or if a nuclear detonation occurred, including death counts. Dima, Faraday, and Chase frequently meet in one of the laboratories, and exit looking like they’ve been arguing. According to Kasumi, there’s a storage space next to the lab that would be ideal for eavesdropping, but it’s always locked.

Fortunately, locked doors are rarely an obstacle.

What we discovered is that some years ago, Dima entrusted some memories to a man called Confessor Martin, a reasonable individual who at the time was the leader of the Children of Atom on the island. His flock were the first humans to accept Dima as an equal, and the old synth has fond memories of his friendship with them. Unfortunately the current leader, High Confessor Tektus, is a zealot who would like nothing more than to wipe Far Harbor and Acadia off the island. With tensions high, the concern is that no one knows what exactly is in the memories that now reside inside the Children’s base of operations. As he has no access to them, Dima cannot remember. The projections Kasumi found were Dima’s attempts at planning for a worse case scenario, attempting to determine how urgent it is to get those memories back. It is very urgent. The one point of hope in the matter is that the tapes are under tight security that none of the children have been able to break… yet. What is needed for is someone to infiltrate the Children, secure the memories, and bring them back without being discovered or starting a war.

It won’t be the first time I’ve joined an organization in order to infiltrate its ranks, though it is the first time I’ve ever joined a violent cult that worships radiation.

Valentine is discontent, and conflicted. He’d rather just take Kasumi home, but at the same time he doesn’t want to abandon the people here. He’s talking to Kasumi now as I write. We had only a brief moment to talk about his potential brother. He honestly can’t remember Dima. For over a hundred years he assumed he was thrown out. The idea that someone may have helped him escape never occurred to him before. He asked me to keep an eye out for anything that might prove Dima’s claims. I only hope his brother, if that’s what he truly is, proves worthy of the privilege.


	3. Atom's Realm

The Children of Atom are based inside an old submarine dock they call the Nucleus. Given the current animosity between the Children of Atom and Acadia, I asked Valentine to stay out of sight as I approached the encampment outside. I thought the guards might react poorly to seeing a prototype synth. It’s fortunate Valentine agreed; as I turned the corner, two Children were being ‘tested’. Only one of them was going to be let back inside the Nucleus. As one begged the Grand Zealot (his actual title) to see reason, he was killed by his brother with a single shot. Appeased, the Zealot permitted the killer entrance, his sin forgiven.

I stepped forward. Dima had been right, the fact that I was a mainlander granted me mere suspicion rather than hostility. If I was sincere in my desire to join the Children of Atom, I first had to drink from a sacred spring and bring back whatever message or gift Atom provided.

I reported back to Valentine, “If we want to get inside, I have to go on a vision quest.”

“You have to what?!”

“There’s a spring this way.”

“A spring?” He frowned, “Holmes, as much as I admire your dedication to playing a role, this is crazy even for you.”

“I can give him whatever story he wants about a vision, but I can’t fake the physical symptoms of radiation poisoning. Not with the resources currently at hand.”

“And you think the only way he’ll believe you is if you’ve recently sucked down some rads.”

“Relax, Valentine, one sip won’t kill me, and you’ll be at hand should I be horribly mistaken.” I handed him a bottle of X-111, Scribe Neriah’s radiation cure. He was not reassured.

I should have listened to him. I was fully prepared to be sick from drinking irradiated water. I was not remotely prepared for the sudden vision of a dark shadow of a woman beckoning me to follow her. The world was suddenly encased in a haze of sickly yellow, the ghostly figure shrouded in black smoke urging me onward as we ran across the island. Irradiated creatures stood aside as we passed, as she led me through ‘Atom’s realm,’ until we reached a small building surrounded by ferals. The ferals attacked, rotting, charred, glowing. I fought in a daze as the figure looked on, vaguely aware of a voice calling to me in the distance, another vague shadow of a figure fighting beside me until the ferals lay dead at our feet. I could hardly stand. I stumbled toward the door of the building, an annoying rapid clicking sound piercing my thoughts as someone grabbed me from behind. I struggled, but I… I realize now that I was dying. A bottle was thrust between my lips as Valentine commanded, “Drink, damn it.”

The X-111 poured down my throat, a chill cold convulsing through my body as the radiation poisoning was countered. A needle in my shoulder; a stimpak injection. “Eat,” he ordered, and I ate what he fed me though I can’t remember what it was. I drank what he gave me, shuddering as the hallucination faded from my perception, the sickly yellow haze disappearing to reveal an old storage building decorated with barrels of nuclear waste.

“Don’t ever do something so stupid again,” Valentine scolded.

I coughed, “I’ll try not to. Where are we?”

“Hell if I know. You took your ‘just one sip’ and then took off running like a man possessed.”

“There was a figure… it was vivid. The animals we passed, did they behave strangely?”

“Come to think of it, it was weird how they sort of got out of your way.”

“Were you hurt -”

“Don’t worry about me, I’m fine. You’re the one who almost died.”

We were sitting on the ground. He was holding me tight against him, my back to his chest. I placed a hand over his, “I’m fine, Valentine. You can let go now.”

He remained stern, “I’ll let go when I’m certain you’re not going to get yourself killed, and not a minute sooner.”

“I’m perfectly capable of -”

“Considering what just happened, you don’t get to make that claim.”

“In my defense, I didn’t know it would be that… that.”

“Doesn’t excuse anything.”

“You’re right, it doesn’t.”

“Don’t think that agreeing with me is going to make me stop being furious with you.”

“I wouldn’t dare.” We sat a moment longer. “Thank you for saving my life. Again.”

He sighed, and slowly let go. “Damn it, Holmes, stop trying to get yourself killed.”

“I swear to you I’m not.”

“Yeah, that’s part of what makes it so infuriating.” We stood, “So. You’ve had your vision quest.”

“I think there’s something inside I need.” I went into the building and retrieved a small carved wooden idol of a woman. Somehow I was certain that it would be all I needed.

Valentine was unimpressed. “That’s it? That’s what this whole nonsense was about?”

I shrugged, “We’ll find out.”

The Grand Zealot was not only impressed, but reverent. Apparently, the shadowy figure is a known phenomenon to the Children. They call her Mother of the Fog and view her as a saint or messenger of Atom, a sort of radioactive guardian angel to the island, and I had just presented them with an idol of her. This meant Atom had clearly chosen me for something special.

I’m certainly not the typical new convert, that much they’re right about.

I was welcomed, given a set of robes, and instructed to give the idol to High Confessor Tektus. Valentine followed, earning a suspicious glare. I took inspiration from the Brotherhood, “The synth’s with me,” I said. “It’s an old model, but has served me well.”

“You will be held responsible for its actions.”

“Understood.”

As we entered, Valentine said in a low voice, “Should I make a beeping noise next time?”

“My dear Valentine, it was the likeliest method of getting you inside.”

“I’m joking, Holmes. You alright?”

“I’m walking through corridors littered with radioactive materials after experiencing a hallucination common enough to have developed its own legend.”

“That’s a 'no,’ then.”

I smirked, and gestured for quiet. High Confessor Tektus was addressing his flock.

It was a message of fire and brimstone, the eventual vengeance of an angry deity upon the non-believers of Far Harbor. When he finished, the Children assembled rose and went on about their day to day lives, much like any settlement, with a few remaining on their knees to pray. As we made our way through, we were greeted by a man who instantly stood out as a bit different from the rest. He wore the same attire as the rest of the Zealots, what might be described as the Children of Atom equivalent to Brotherhood Knights. What made him stand out was how obviously distracted he was.

Curious, I said hello. I was encouraged by his greeting. “Yeah? I mean, glory to At… wait. You’re new.” The sight of Valentine behind me seemed to bolster him, “You happen to see Brother Devin? Sickly guy praying off by himself?”

“Fella that looks like he’s two steps away from a ghoul with hair by the entrance?” Valentine asked.

“That’s him,” the man nodded, and introduced himself as Ware. He explained that he and Brother Devin don’t have 'Atom’s gift,’ that bizarre quirk of biology or genetics that enable most of the Children to withstand radiation without harm. Ware himself was a Trapper before his group stumbled upon High Confessor Tektus and some Children on their way to a pilgrimage. It’s an old story of practical conversion. For the promise of three meals a day and never worrying about being eaten in his sleep, who wouldn’t choose to ‘join the family?’ Now, he was hoping beyond hope I was as practically minded in my devotion as he was. His friend Devin is a jet addict. Devin was convinced that if he went on a fast and bathed himself in radiation, he would receive a message from Atom himself to let him overcome his vices or some such nonsense. What he was doing was slowly killing himself. Ware’s plan was to help the vision along. I was the perfect stranger for the job.

“Valentine,” I said, “I’m about to do one of those stupid things you’re so fond of.”

He smiled. “Figured. Can’t say I object too much to this one.”

Dressed in old rags and possibly emanating a faint glow from radiation exposure, I gave a grand speech to the suffering Brother. I don’t even remember what I said, something about his fasting bringing about his own salvation, after all he hadn’t touched jet since he started. Whatever I said, it worked. Devin hurried off, overjoyed, and I felt a comforting skeletal hand on my arm.

“Still standing?” Valentine sounded oddly amused, “Come on, Ware said he’s got something that should help.”

“What’s amusing?”

“It’s funny how much Atom’s Messenger sounds like the Silver Shroud.”

I stifled a laugh, and drank down the syrupy brew Ware handed me without question. It felt like a dose of Radaway and three stimpaks at the same time. Ware was grateful for my help, and gave me the recipe in thanks.

“If nothing else, you saved a life, so this might be worth all the effort,” Valentine said.

We returned to our original purpose. I brought the idol to the High Confessor. He was impressed, though more cautious than his Grand Zealot. According to him, he and Confessor Martin came to the Island from the Capital Wasteland. The people of Far Harbor cast them out, and they and the few followers they had found in town barely escaped with their lives. Given the general hostility the Harbormen and women show newcomers, I can believe it. Of course, sending Children to sabotage the Harbor and preaching damnation isn’t going to help matters, but reason rarely makes sense to those who are already certain of their moral high ground. The same goes for some of the residents of Far Harbor who would rather eliminate anything they don’t understand than try to coexist.

Dima and the Children existed in peace until Dima gave Far Harbor the Fog condensers. Now Tektus is determined to obtain the memories Dima made them promise to never access. None of his people have been successful. Security around the Control Center housing Dima’s memories consisted of a single guard, who warned me not to enter. Everyone who has gone in, hasn’t come out. I made some comment about faith shielding me, she scoffed, and let us inside.

Inside was a tunnel filled with laser tripwires and machine gun turrets. 

“Well that looks fun,” Valentine said with sardonic humor.

Our progress through was difficult, primarily due to the assaultrons with stealth capabilities on guard. Fortunately the tunnel was narrow, and I had brought a couple of mines with me. Once we had finally penetrated to the computer banks, all that remained was to use the program Faraday had designed to retrieve the encoded memories.

Dima had said I would have to “go inside” to retrieve them. As a device lowered for me to put over my head, I half expected something remotely similar to the Memory Den. I couldn’t have been farther from the truth. It was a world of blue blocks, hovering red defense programs, and things called indexers that looked like pixelated green insects scurrying to carry data to its destination.

When I finally emerged, I groaned, rubbing the sides of my head, “Thank goodness that’s done. I’ve never been so bored.”

Valentine was skeptical, “You were inside the mind of a prototype synth hooked up to computers and it was boring?”

“My fascination with the alien environment I found myself within was quickly overshadowed by the banality of the task in front of me. I’d have thought your brother might have something a bit less repetitive guarding his secrets… but that’s neither here nor there. You need to listen to this.”

I handed him the holotape of one of the memories I’d found. It was the day they escaped. A frightened and confused Nick Valentine demanded answers, asking what sort of a thing Dima was without even realizing he was the same. An argument led to a fight, and Dima walked away, leaving Valentine to wake up in a junkyard alone.

Valentine was shaken. “God… Dima really did help me escape the Institute? I wasn’t just tossed out with the garbage?”

I nodded, “So it seems.”

“I must’ve still been in a haze from the Institute’s experiments. Did I really attack him? Did he really knock the daylights out of me and leave me for dead?” He shook his head, frustrated, “Damn it, why can’t I remember?”

A hand on his shoulder seemed ludicrously inadequate for comfort, but I didn’t know what else to do. “Perhaps Dima is right and over time memories are overwritten, or perhaps the blow he gave you had something to do with it. Perhaps you’re no different than anyone else who suffers a traumatic experience and promptly buries any memory of it happening.”

He sighed, and covered my hand with his. “Yeah. Well, I wanted proof Dima and I had history, and I got it. Now I just gotta figure out what to do.”

“Do you want a brother in your life?”

“And if I did, would I want Dima to be that brother?” He shook his head, “I don’t know, Holmes. A lot of time has passed. I don’t know anything about him, not really. Maybe that’s the place to start. Try to be a little nicer to the old synth. Make up for lost time…”

My hand fell from his shoulder, a strange tightness in my chest. I want him to be happy, to have at least a chance at reunion with the brother he never knew, but I also knew what Dima’s memories held. “You should know, Dima is hiding something. His memories mention contingency plans, a secret medical facility. I believe the reason he offloaded these memories is because he couldn’t stand to remember… traumatic experiences.”

Valentine frowned, but nodded, “We have to know what’s going on. I’d like to take Dima’s word for it, but we have to see for ourselves.”

“I’m sorry.”

“No, no it’s… I’m glad you gave me this. At least I know that much is true, that he cared enough to get me out. As for the rest… we’ll have to find out, won’t we?”

Dima buried a kill switch code for the turbines that power the Fog condensers around Far Harbor. A secret medical facility is apparently housed somewhere inside a soda factory, where something happened that Dima hated himself for. He found the nuclear launch key for the submarine within the Nucleus and promptly removed his memory of its location. 

We are going to be remarkably busy.


	4. Memories

We agreed that the first order of business was to retrieve the kill switch code and the launch key, as the discovery of those would lead to the worse case scenarios of the Fog overtaking Far Harbor and a nuclear detonation, respectively. I must admit, I severely underestimated the ferocity of native wildlife. Anglers are capable of expelling a viscous substance from their mouth which combusts on impact. Hermit crabs are big enough to use cars for shells. And of course, somehow super mutants made the long journey north, though how the hell they got to an island is beyond me. Perhaps they swam. At any rate, I have never been so thankful to be skilled in moving silently. I am also running out of ammunition.

As we left the Nucleus, the Grand Zealot intercepted me and charged his new recruit with an important task - tracking down a heretic. Sister Gwyneth had apparently left the fold, and was now desecrating Atom’s shrines around the island. I had no interest in stopping her, but when it became clear that she was as good as dead if she didn’t stop, I resolved to keep an eye out and at least warn her. On our return east after securing the kill switch, we found her. The poor woman had found a pre-war science textbook, and saw an illustration of an atom. Her conclusion? Atom was a false god, but rather than simply stopping there she warped her blind belief onto the space within and around the atom… nothing. I managed to convince her to leave the island before the Children find her and kill her. If bizarre pseudo-nihilistic cults to Nothing start popping up across the northern Commonwealth it will be my fault, but I find that highly unlikely.

We’ve made camp in the church Gwyneth was using for shelter. The walls are whole, and a couple traps are set around the perimeter. Valentine is struggling to reconcile his desire to get to know his brother with the knowledge that Dima had planned the destruction of Far Harbor. Even if the plan was never brought to fruition, discarded and hidden… I don’t think such a thing would ever even occur to Valentine. Mass murder in the name of peace.

We spoke a bit about family. I told him about my brother Mycroft, seven years my senior. Officially, he had a position in a mid-level government office. Unofficially, he was involved in undercover operations across the world. Not personally; he never left a three block radius of his office and lodgings, but the data, the theories, all passed through him. We were never close, not in the traditional sense. He understood me better than anyone, and I him, but no one in my family could ever be described as sentimental. I hadn’t seen or heard from him in a year before the end of the world.

“It’s a strange thing,” I finished, “I left my parents and brothers behind, a legacy of moderate aristocracy, to be true to myself. It was quite the falling out. While Mycroft was certainly family, the rest of them… I haven’t thought about them in years, and now that they’re two hundred years gone, it almost hurts to wonder what might have been.”

Valentine’s hand squeezed mine in a perfect expression of sympathy. “Do you think I would have wound up here with Dima, if I’d kept my head after we escaped, or would he have gone with me, maybe met those settlers who helped me out all those years ago?”

“Perhaps neither. You could have set up a refuge somewhere in the Commonwealth for just the two of you. I refuse to believe you wouldn’t want to help people, it’s not in your nature. The Valentine Detective Agency would still exist, just perhaps in slightly different form and location.”

He made a small, pleased sound, “Would have been a hell of a thing.” Then he sighed, “Of course, without Dima the people on this Island might have been wiped out by this damn Fog. Chase would still be a number working for the Institute. Who knows what would have happened to all those synths.”

“True. He’s done some good here.”

“But is it worth whatever evil he’s committed?”

“We don’t know that he has, Valentine. He created the means to destroy Far Harbor, but he hid it and removed his own memory of it. That seems to suggest he at least has a conscience.”

“At least there’s that.” Valentine shook his head, “No use wondering about all the what-ifs right now. We’ll find out what else he’s been hiding tomorrow.”


	5. Secrets

The local soda factory housing Dima’s secret medical facility was home to a large group of super mutants. We fought past and made our way to the basement. There was a large patch of bare earth in the middle of the floor. We looked at each other, and with great dread wordlessly agreed. After all, we were looking for buried secrets.

What we found was a skeleton, with a locket, and a holotape. The tape held a conversation between Dima and a synth woman. She asked if it would hurt. He told her yes, that it would feel like having everything she was ripped out and replaced with something else. He secretly planted a synth among the Far Harbor populace, someone who would be reasonable and open to accepting synths, a bridge between worlds. The locket identified his victim as Captain Avery.

Valentine was… grim. “Just when I’d decided to give him an honest chance, we find this.”

I moved further into the basement, both to be thorough and out of a desperate desire to find some evidence that we were mistaken, that my partner’s brother wasn’t a utilitarian murderer. “We’ll give him a chance to explain.”

“Explain?” He followed me into the next room, a chamber with computers and a security door. “What explanation could -”

A voice interrupted us from a speaker in the control panel, “Scanning. Approved user detected. Synth prototype. Unlocking medical area door.”

To say Valentine was disturbed would be an understatement. “What - this thing knows what I am? How? Just who are you?”

The voice from the intercom identified itself as KYE 1.1, a computer intelligence designed to control medical facilities. Specifically, “the room through that door.” It continued, “You match all specifications for an approved user. Personally speaking, they were very narrow.”

Valentine frowned. “This must be Dima’s handiwork. Guess he never thought another prototype synth would be on the island. Might as well take a look.”

I almost wish we hadn’t, that we’d just let the knowledge of what happened lie and not seen that room, the handprint of blood on the countertop, the red streak of a body dragged across the floor.

Valentine was aghast. “Was all this blood from turning that woman into a replacement, or is this where Avery met her end?”

I sighed, “It’s a gruesome picture either way… Valentine, wait.”

He was already halfway up the basement steps, “I’ve got questions for that ‘brother’ of mine.”

“We don’t know if more mutants are in the building, slow down!”

At least he slowed, but he radiated fury. I’ve never seen him so angry. This wasn’t just the righteous outrage at the loss of a life, this was horror and disgust and betrayal by someone he had been willing to try to forgive.

I tried to remain calm and reasonable, some sort of voice of logic, though God knows it was the most difficult time I’ve ever had of it. “We will confront him, he will have his say, and then we will determine what to do next.”

I could faintly hear metal grinding together from how tightly he clenched his jaw. I wanted nothing more than to do or say something to make that tension fade, but… 

He nodded once, “Fine.” And we began the silent walk back to Acadia.

We went straight to Dima upon arrival. He greeted us with some quiet nervousness. He didn’t know what he had hidden, but I wonder if he suspected what we would find. Valentine stood behind me, silent. I started with the easy revelations, the launch key and the kill switch for the wind turbines. Dima was distressed by both.

“You saw, of course, the submarine is rusted into the dry dock,” he said. “The only target that missile is ever going to hit is the base itself. We have to keep that key out of the wrong hands. The Nucleus has innocent people living there among the zealots threatening Far Harbor.”

“We found the launch key, already. We’ll make sure it’s never used,” I assured him, “but why create a kill switch for the wind turbines powering Far Harbor’s Fog condensers?”

“I remember… I was afraid that Far Harbor might turn against us. See us as too different for their precious island. So I made a contingency plan. Mass murder. I hid the kill switch code because I couldn’t stomach the thought of actually using it. Then I hid the memory because I couldn’t even stand knowing I made it.” He sounded amazed and horrified that he had even considered his action, “What have I done? If the Children of Atom were to ever get a hold of that code, they would destroy the town.”

“We already have the code. Far Harbor is safe.”

He was relieved. “Good. Now we just need to find some way to end this conflict. When the Fog got worse, the people of Far Harbor killed a Child of Atom missionary. There’s been nothing but hatred and bloodshed since.” He hesitated, “But, you found… something else, in my memories, didn’t you? I can tell by the look on your face, the way Nick is… what was it?”

I handed him the last memory, and the locket. “You killed Captain Avery and replaced her with a synth.”

“What? That’s impossible. Let me see…” He played the memory. His next words were anguished, “I… I did it. I killed a woman from Far Harbor and replaced her. I stripped a synth’s identity from her and made her an agent…”

“You’re a fraud,” I said.

“I… I needed to calm Far Harbor. A moderate voice. An example of what humanity should be. How we could exist together as equals. But I couldn’t live with the memories of the blood on my hands…”

“It’s called willful ignorance for a reason,” Valentine muttered.

If Dima could have shed tears, I believe he would have. “I can… remember it… the blood. The life ebbing from that woman’s eyes… The screams… A human and a synth are both gone because of me!”

“You did this on your own?” I pressed, “No one else in Acadia is involved?”

He calmed somewhat, though the sadness remained. “What I’ve done goes against all of our ideals. I even hid it from myself. So, no, there can’t be anyone else.” He studied me carefully, then. “If Far Harbor knew I had done this, they wouldn’t destroy just me. They’d come after Acadia. And then without us, the Fog condensers will eventually fall into disrepair. Everyone will die.”

With a heavy sigh, I nodded, “This will be kept secret.”

Valentine glowered, “Is this what we call justice? A woman is killed in cold blood and we let it slide?”

“Would you have him killed?” I challenged. “That is what will happen if Dima turns himself in, if Far Harbor ever found out about this. You know as well as I do that there is no law in Far Harbor, only tradition and ancient customs. Avery and the synth who became her will find no justice in an angry mob.”

He frowned, still angry, but he said, “Alright. For the sake of the rest of the synths here, and the people in Far Harbor who’d die without Acadia’s technology, we’ll keep quiet. For now.”

Dima spoke quietly, somber and shaken. “Thank you. I promise you, as long as Far Harbor stands, I will make sure that Acadia does everything to make up for my crimes. Maybe the… guilt, will keep me focused…”

“Didn’t stop you before,” Valentine bit.

Dima winced, but said, “I may have a plan to keep the peace on the island. Unfortunately, it is… as gruesome as the last.”

“What?” Valentine shouted, “Who has to die this time?!”

“Nick, please listen,” Dima begged, “As horrifying as it might be to suggest, if Far Harbor could be made more… tranquil… by our intervention, then perhaps the same trick will work twice, on the Children of Atom. We could replace High Confessor Tektus with someone willing to forgive Far Harbor and work towards reconciling.”

“I can’t believe we’re even considering this. Holmes?”

“There must be another way, Dima.”

Dima shook his head, “None that I can see. The authority of the High Confessor is absolute. The Children of Atom won’t see the need for peace unless he… changes his mind.” He looked at Nick, “I do not suggest this lightly. I have spent so much time trying to find a way, but it remained impossible because High Confessor Tektus will never permit peace, and removing him was never a possibility I considered. Until now.”

Valentine looked away. “It’s your call,” he said softly.

It hurt. I was disgusted and horrified when I found proof of the Institute’s practice of replacing those they wanted on their side, and now here I was agreeing to the same. “In some corner of Hell, he’s laughing at me,” I whispered to no one in particular. To Dima, I said, “Tell me every detail of your plan.”

The plan was to lure the Confessor to a secluded location and dispose of the body. I countered that convincing him to leave would serve the same purpose. Dima agreed, though he doubted it would be possible. For bait, Dima asked us to retrieve recordings of his conversations with Confessor Martin. He would use these to create false evidence of Martin’s return, an unlikely possibility that Tektus nonetheless fears.

As we started to leave, Valentine suddenly turned and marched right back to where Dima stood. “There’s zero reason for me to think you actually give a damn, but if you really mean all that junk about Acadia making up for your sins, if you really are happy to see me again and want a chance at starting over, you have to promise you’ll never remove a memory like this again. You have to live with the crimes you’ve committed and all the guilt that goes with them like everyone else.”

Dima was taken aback, “I… yes, I promise.”

“Good.”

We left to find Kasumi, to let her know everything we discovered. She was distressed, and wondered what would happen to Acadia, if it was worth saving. I told her Acadia was a good idea, in theory, and that the synths staying there were innocent and should be protected until proven otherwise. This seemed to reassure her. She still wants to stay, for the time being, but this has given her a great deal to consider.

Neither of us were in any frame of mind to stay put in that place. The only other option was to return to Far Harbor. We were greeted by the sight of Allen Lee, the gruff weapons shop owner, with his gun pointed at a Child of Atom. Avery looked on with horror as he gave his speech to a small crowd of Harbormen and women, trying to find some way to stop him.

We hurried forward, “What’s going on?”

“This doesn’t concern you, mainlander,” Allen spat. “This here saboteur meant to cut us off from food and water. Punishment is pretty clear, Captain.”

With a heavy sigh, Avery took stock of the crowd and conceded, “Do what you must.”

The Child of Atom died. A cry went up from among the crowd, “You were right, Allen!”

He was bolstered, vindicated as he challenged Avery, “Now will you listen to sense? The Children of Atom need to be wiped clean off this island.”

Avery was not impressed. “You’ve had your blood today. I can’t stomach any more of it. All of you, show’s over. Go home.”

The crowd dispersed, leaving the body outside the gate, abandoned.

“You were right,” Valentine said. “There’s no justice in this place. Saboteur or not, this execution was just one man looking for trouble, a mob hoping for something to blame. If we’d hauled Dima down here…” He didn’t finish the thought. He didn’t need to.

We returned to the private room for rent in the Last Plank. Dima needs time to prepare a volunteer to sacrifice themselves and become another person. We will take full advantage of that fact and stay a few days in Far Harbor. Valentine asked if we would tell Avery what we found. I doubt she would thank us for ripping away what she perceives as her life, her identity. It wouldn’t be the first time I hid the truth to save a life, and it likely won’t be the last.

 

I sat on the bed, writing the above when Valentine leaned against the wall across from me, arms folded. “You know, if he’s as smart as he had to have been, he’s not laughing.” I glanced up, puzzled. “From his corner of Hell,” he clarified.

I scoffed, “Why not? Everyone in the Institute talked about the sacrifices he made, the great work he did in the name of their ideal, their vision.”

“That vision involved a race of slaves underground serving humanity for the rest of time with the surface as their experiment dumping ground. Bit different than stopping three groups from destroying each other on a small island.”

“We are using the end to justify the means. And I agreed to it.”

“Yeah,” he sighed, “but if we can’t hold back an angry mob, and a whole lot of innocent lives are lost, then that’s on us. We’ve seen what the people here are like. Dima says he killed a person to protect his people. That prejudiced jackass selling guns down the street uses the same excuse for killing every Child of Atom he sees. At least Dima seems to feel guilty about it.”

“Valentine, if it were different, if we knew Acadia would be safe, would you have him executed? It’s the penalty here for the crime of murder.”

“And sabotage, apparently,” he grumbled, lighting a cigarette, “and who knows what else. I don’t like covering this up. Dima needs to pay for his crimes, but at the same time… it’s strange, knowing he got me out of the Institute. That he could have been family.”

“Do you want him to be?”

“That’s what I’ve been asking myself since we met him.” He shook his head, “Why do you think he hid that memory, the one of us fighting? He recognized me, knew we left together, but then was it a blank? He knew I was gone, but that was it?”

I shrugged, “If it’s true that he hid the other memories because of his guilt, then that may have been the case for the memory of the fight. He probably thought you were dead, or at the very least that he would never see you again.”

Valentine sat down beside me, “I wish I could remember more about him… eh, then again, maybe I don’t. Maybe it would just make this whole business worse, if that’s possible.”

I placed my hand on his, “We’ll get through. As someone very dear to me once said, ‘I know the night just got darker, but it won’t last forever.’”

He smiled, just a little, but a smile all the same. “Was he right?”

“He was.”

He chuckled, softly. “Here’s hoping it proves true a second time around. Thanks, partner.”

We decided to stay a couple of days in Far Harbor and do what we can to help the people here. They certainly need it, but more importantly even if this plan works, even if the Children of Atom can be made docile, the hostility the people feel for every outsider is only going to cause more conflict further down the road. So, we will show them not all outsiders are things to be feared.


	6. Helping the Locals

When we first arrived, I had told the Mariner I would try to find some tools for her to use from an abandoned tannery further inland, if I had the opportunity. Now was as good a time as any. As we made our way down the dock in the morning, an older woman with a fondness for storytelling by the name of Cassie Dalton asked me to take care of some unfinished family revenge upon the creatures of the island. I was headed in the same general direction, so I agreed to look into it.

Our efforts to impress the locals got a good start. As I bought some ammunition from the Bait Shop, Valentine wandered to the back. The Bait Shop is an odd combination of general store and medical facility; a third generation synth called Brooks runs the general store in the front of the building, while Dr. Teddy Wright (of no relation to our favorite reporter) has his office in the back. A general store doubling as a clinic isn’t the traditional place one purchases ammunition, but I’ll be damned if I set one foot inside Allen Lee’s weapons shop.

Valentine was talking to Dr. Wright when I joined him. They stood by a bed, looking over a man who was clearly on death’s door. After a quick introduction, Valentine said, “The doc was just telling me about how Andre here’s picked up a case of severe radiation poisoning from the Fog. No chance of saving him,” he paused, a pointed look on his face, “unless some sort of miracle cure-all was found.”

I had been carrying a dose of the Cabot serum on me since it was discovered, with the thought that at least one dose would be safe in my possession should something befall the others. I didn’t have any idea if its age-reversing properties would extend to cleansing the body of severe radiation poisoning, but what did we have to lose? “Dr. Wright, would you object to an… alternative approach to your patient’s condition?”

“Call me Teddy, please, and at this point I figure the worse you can do is end his suffering a little faster, so,” he shrugged, “go ahead.”

I injected Andre with the serum. The effects were immediate. He began breathing easier, the whimpers of agony faded, and within a matter of minutes he looked as though he was on his way to recovery. Dr. Wright - Teddy - was stunned, and immensely grateful. We’ve gained a solid ally within the town. 

As we left, I asked Valentine, “How did you know I had the serum with me?”

“Saw it while going through your bag.”

“Why were you going through my bag?”

“You didn’t pack any spare clothes.”

“What? This was supposed to be a simple search and retrieval case, bringing a runaway girl home to her parents, I didn’t anticipate being on this waterlogged island for longer than a couple days, and that doesn’t answer the question.”

“I wondered what you’d brought along.” The obvious conclusion I might make suddenly occurred to him, “I wasn’t looking for anything specific, I promise. You’ve been clean for almost a month and -”

“It’s alright,” I sighed and held his hand, “I didn’t mean… thank you, for looking out for me. Even when I don’t want it.”

“Still a clumsy way of me to go about it.”

“Perhaps, but your intention was good. Apparently I can’t be trusted to properly prepare for any long distance excursion.”

“You packed four different weapons, three packs of cigarettes, two lighters, and a toothbrush, but not a single spare shirt. Just sayin’.”

“I believe I have my priorities perfectly in order.”

“You didn’t pack any clothes because last time we were in Sanctuary, Mama Murphy said you’d need them.”

“Honestly, Valentine, do you think I would be that petty?” He lit a cigarette, and wordlessly offered it to me. I took it with a roll of my eyes. “We’re not continuing this conversation.”

He smiled.

I decided to visit Longfellow’s cabin and recruit the old hunter. We could certainly use someone with more experience fighting or avoiding the creatures of the island, and at the very least an extra gun would be a comfort. He was glad to come along, though the bottle of whiskey I’d brought to his residence may have had something to do with it.

It was an exhausting day of fighting ferals, wolves, and mirelurks. The Mariner was grateful for the power tools, and Ms. Dalton asked me to clear the Fog Crawler from her family’s former farm. I had yet to see one of these Crawlers, and everyone in the Harbor was certain a mainlander didn’t stand a chance against one. On the other hand, Longfellow did say to me ‘you’re not as green as I thought,’ which I understood to be high praise, and so we made preparations to retake the farm and prepare it to be resettled if there’s anyone brave enough to attempt it.

Crawlers, I discovered, are mutated shrimp the size of a small house. They are remarkably fast, and their exoskeleton extremely durable. Fortunately, they are also terrible at climbing; gaining a high perch and firing from above did the trick. After the creature was dispatched, Longfellow admitted I’ve earned a measure of his respect, something no one else in Far Harbor can claim. “Most folk in Far Harbor ain’t worth a damn, anyway. All of ‘em cowerin’ behind their wall, too scared to fight for their home. It’s good to meet someone who can take care of themselves for a change.”

It was getting dark as we passed the rocky path to his cabin, and he invited us up for a drink, an invitation he quickly clarified, “Well, one of you, at least.”

“Never cared for the stuff, myself,” Valentine said, “tastes like battery acid. Always wondered if that was a malfunction.”

Longfellow chuckled, “Dependin’ on the batch, might not be.” He started walking, and we followed. “So you can drink?”

“Can, sure, but I don’t need to.”

“What’s the point, then?”

“You’d have to ask the ones who built me, but they’re all dead and they didn’t leave behind an instruction manual.”

“Hmph. Damn inconsiderate of ‘em.”

Valentine shrugged, “Not the worst thing.”

“How ‘bout you, cap’n? You followed me, so I assume you’re a drinkin’ man.”

“Yes, though I never thought I’d miss cold carbonated water.”

“Cold whatnow?”

Thus began a night of long stories over a bottle of whiskey. I told him about the Vault, that my son was kidnapped as an infant, that Valentine helped me find him again. Valentine talked about Diamond City, and Longfellow told stories of growing up on the island, peppered with all manner of sage advice on how to survive. From his stories I gained a distinct impression that the people of Far Harbor are stagnating on that dock. Survival on the island is clearly possible, if remarkably difficult. Perhaps our efforts to help the town might encourage a few of them to make an honest try at living again, instead of simply existing.


	7. A Vault, a Queen, and a Valentine

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alternate Title: Holmes Stops Thinking for Three Minutes

Valentine and I returned to Far Harbor in the morning to find a Miss Nanny model robot talking to Captain Avery. The robot introduced herself as Pearl, and said she was looking for a detective. Apparently the staff at the hotel on the cliff were distressed by the lack of a response when they tried to call the police.

A staff of robots who hadn’t realized the world had ended, and now wanted help with a murder investigation. At least it was different. The hotel was swarming with ferals, as should have been expected. In fact, I assumed this whole thing was simply going to be a macabre misunderstanding, an example of a robot’s programming unable to adjust to dramatic change.

Then we saw the Vault door.

“Well, well,” said Valentine, “this place just got a little more interesting.”

“Indeed. I shudder to think what sort of experiments they had planned for the hotel residents.”

Never in my wildest nightmares could I have conceived what we found inside. The Vault was a plush luxury hotel, every possible need of its residents tended to by a staff of robots. We were met by the head of staff, a Mr. Handy called Maxwell, who led us to the scene of the crime where two of the… residents, were arguing.

“Goodness,” Valentine said.

“I would have used much stronger language,” I muttered.

“No need to be crass while we’re working.”

“Normally I’d agree, but this seems an appropriate exception.”

The residents were human brains encased in glass domes atop mechanical cylinders with simple robotic arms and caterpillar wheels. They could speak, and did so, shouting at each other around the toppled form of another one, the glass protecting the brain smashed in. Maxwell managed to interrupt, asking them to return to their quarters while the detectives investigated.

“Your residents are robots?” I asked as they left.

“Not robots, Detective. Well not exactly anyway. I believe the term they use is ‘robobrain.’ Back before the war, the residents decided the best way to wait it out was to put their brains inside robotic chassis.”

“I guess someone wasn’t a fan of robobrains,” Valentine commented as he looked down at the smashed glass, “At least not this one.”

Maxwell gave us the name and occupations of all five remaining “robobrains” and we began. It was surreal, to put it lightly. No, I must be honest, it was mad. We found the Overseer’s office and learned the Vault was originally intended as a grand social experiment; a lower working class would be housed in a cramped wing of the Vault while an elite rich lived in luxury… but the door wouldn’t open when it came time for the masses to enter. As Maxwell said, the rich residents had decided even before the war to gain immortality as robobrains, and so the Overseer was stuck as the sole experiment, the one person who had to live with ‘these assholes’ as he put it. For their part, the robobrains descended into a mild madness of delusion and banality… until one of them decided to commit murder.

There were limited options as to who the killer could be, and the solution was ultimately fairly simple, though certainly unique. I’d never had a case where the murderer stole the victim’s voice to fake his own death before. Ultimately, Vault 118 was a surreal, macabre distraction from the drama of the island. It was almost refreshing to deal with something as straightforward as murder born from greed, as terrible as it may be to say so. At the same time, Vault 118 is little more than a lush Hell of its residents’ own devising.

We returned to town and were met by Dr. Wright. Teddy, as he insists I refer to him, heard about what I’d done to assist around town, and had an idea for turning around the town’s attitude toward me. There is an old ritual called “The Captain’s Dance,” an ancient rite of passage that hasn’t been completed in a long time. It involves chumming the water and fighting what comes. If I can complete it, I’ll earn the respect of the town.

Valentine is doubtful. I wanted another opinion, so I went to the best source of information on Far Harbor and the island. Longfellow’s initial response was not encouraging.

“You want to what?! I know you can handle yourself in a fight, but there’s a reason this old tradition faded away. Too many people hoping to be Captain ended up dead.”

I resisted the urge to roll my eyes, “But will it work?”

“Assumin’ you don’t die, sure it’ll get people to respect you, but why the hell do you care?”

“I don’t give a damn about their opinion of me, Longfellow. To be perfectly blunt, the people in that town need a reminder that monsters can be fought and beaten, and maybe not every stranger that comes to town is trouble. I’m tired of seeing nothing but suspicion and despair everytime I say hello to someone.”

He sighed, and turned to Valentine, “And you’re just going along with this, metal man? Ain’t you supposed to be his friend?”

Valentine was mildly offended, “You think I haven’t tried to talk some sense into him?”

“You’re stronger than him, ain’t ya?”

“Not particularly fond of the idea of knocking my partner unconscious,” he frowned. “You’re welcome to try locking him up, but he’ll get out.”

The old hunter scowled. “… well, hell, cap’n, if you’re dead set on this foolishness, I guess I’m gonna have to go along with you. Can’t have your death hauntin’ me, got enough reasons to drink as it is.”

I was not cavalier, I knew exactly how dangerous this undertaking would be… I thought. After all, I’d defeated everything that has tried to eat me so far. This would be dangerous, but survivable. I had plenty of ammunition, a few grenades, and friends at my back. There was no sign of an angler’s light, no sound of a Fog Crawler in the distance, just a swamp full of mirelurks.

I should have anticipated the queen.

And yet, eventually she fell… and so did I, collapsing as my head spun and vision fogged. I heard Valentine shouting in the distance, and then he was beside me, “Holmes! Sherlock? Oh thank god you’re alive.” I felt the familiar jab of a stimpak in my shoulder, and another in my leg. My sight cleared as he gripped my shoulders, worry and anger all over his face, mere inches from mine, “You are an absolute idiot! Why do I let you talk me into these things? If you weren’t half dead I’d… I don’t know what I’d do!”

I had no words to adequately express what I felt in that moment, and only one reaction seemed reasonable. Nick Valentine’s lips are somewhere between malleable plastic and supple leather worn by the elements. 

“I’m sorry,” I said. At his baffled scowl, I clarified, “For scaring you. You’re right, this was an idiotic plan.”

“That suggests you had a plan to begin with. I said you were an idiot, period.” His hand clasped mine. “If I could have heart attacks, I’d have had three of them since meeting you. Can you stand?”

I could. Longfellow shook his head as we approached, bemused. “You’re a strange one, cap’n, no mistake. Come on, let’s get you back. Reckon the witness the doc sent will get back long before we will.” The old hunter chuckled, “Should have seen the way he ran out of here.”

We made our slow way back to Far Harbor in exhausted silence. The people were assembled, a feast set, and Dr. Wright was giving a speech about me. Cheers went up all around as a Harborman confirmed I’d completed the 'dance’ and killed a mirelurk queen, and the party began.

Dr. Wright confirmed I wasn’t going to die, and quipped, “If they don’t respect you now, well, fuck 'em.” It was a sentiment I heartily agreed with.

I milled about, making an appearance and performing the socializing expected just long enough to claim exhaustion and go up to the room over the Last Plank. Valentine followed.

“First time I’ve seen this town in a good mood. Almost makes this dumb stunt worth it.”

I pulled off my chest piece with a groan, “You’ve made your point.”

“Hey, hold still.” The contrast of leathery plastic and cold steel on my back as he pushed up the edge of my shirt surprised me. He tsked, “Your armor’s straps rubbed the skin raw. Being constantly soaked the past few days probably didn’t help.”

I set to removing the rest of my armor, “I hardly noticed.”

“We’ll have to buy you a new set of clothes.”

“The clothes will have dried in a few hours.”

“My point was to get you out of damp clothes in the first place…”

He was suddenly quiet as I removed my shirt. I glanced at him, “You did say I needed to get out of these clothes.”

“Holmes, you don’t even come downstairs in your own home unless you’re dressed or in a robe to cover the fact you’re only mostly dressed.”

I removed my boots and socks, “The two of us are alone in a room above a bar on the fringes of what might be described as civilization. My desires for privacy and propriety are second to my need to be dry for an evening.”

“And you’d rather be naked than wear a fisherman’s outfit.”

“What? Of course not, it simply wouldn’t be practical. There’s no point in spending caps on a full set of clothes I’m only going to wear one night, perhaps two.”

“Sure, sure,” he grinned. 

“Your clothes are in a similar state.”

“Sure, but I don’t catch pneumonia.” He watched me search for some sort of blanket for the bed, his grin fading to something more self conscious. “Hey, Holmes… about the kiss.”

“What about it?”

“You aren’t usually the type for, uh, physical displays of affection.”

I scoffed, “The fact that I choose to keep my most intimate emotions private from the rest of the world doesn’t mean I don’t feel them.”

“I wasn’t saying it did. Just surprised.”

I sighed, “I apologize, it was a common assumption for most of my life. I’d never seen you so panicked, I was relieved to be alive, and…” I shrugged, “even I have moments of emotional impulse.” I tossed the threadbare excuse for a quilt I’d found onto the bed and turned to him, “May I remind you, Mr. Valentine, the idea of us being partners in more than the business definition was originally your suggestion.”

He folded his arms, “While you cracked wise about being on one knee.”

“I simply want to establish that any confusion in our relationship is your fault.”

“Ha! Don’t try pinning this on me, half the time I don’t know what possessed me to fall for you in the first place.”

If I can be forgiven for using such a cliché, my heart leapt. “I wonder that myself. God knows I’ve given you plenty of reason to leave -”

His arms were suddenly around me, pulling me close. A soft heat emanated from his chest, along with the faint hum of internal machinery. It was exquisite.

“I’m not going anywhere,” he said. “Don’t even suggest it.”

“I know,” I sighed, “I may need reminding, but I know.”

“You were married. Someone other than me once thought you were worth loving.”

I smiled, a small laugh escaping. “She often needed to remind me as well.”

“You keep telling me how human I am, I’ll keep doing the same for you.”

My arms tightened around him, “A perfect arrangement.”

“If you hadn’t been here with me… I don’t know what I’d have done.”

“You’d probably be a lot drier, for one.”

“Maybe,” he chuckled, soft and low, as he studied me in awe. “Any thought of love was all memories, just the old Nick’s grief… but you. You’re mine.”

I shivered, “For as long as you’ll have me.”

He kissed me again, and I let myself fall against him. He made a small sound of surprise as I coaxed a deeper kiss; his mouth is warm and dry but tastes of smoke and something slick and metallic and unidentifiable. 

“That can't have been pleasant,” he muttered.

“On the contrary,” I traced the edges of exposed circuitry in his throat, a warmth I hadn’t felt since before the War spreading through me. “Valentine - Nick… this is hardly the time or place, I don’t even know if you would want…”

He smiled at how flustered I suddenly was, the light touch of his lips silencing me. “I’d like to see if I can make you stop thinking for three minutes.”

 

He’s buying clothes this morning. Mine are dry, but desperately in need of a wash. And so I woke to him leaving, a quick kiss as he said, “We can afford clothes, one use or not. Go back to sleep.” I didn’t have the energy to argue.

There is a mark on my hip from his right hand, and though I don’t have a mirror to see for myself, I’m certain there are a few along my collarbone as well. I’ve never been more affectionately bemused by the sight of bruises on my skin. I have not often craved physical contact with anyone; my marriage was one of intellectual companionship and deep friendship. I remember being in her arms or holding her in mine, the proximity to someone I love a unique comfort, but this…

Dear god, I’m prattling away into a diary like a lovesick schoolboy when there’s work to be done.


	8. Plans

We couldn’t put off Dima’s plan any longer. Along the way we checked on the status of the Last Plank bartender’s uncle, still living out on the island in the Fog thanks to some condensers, and we promised an enterprising young girl called Bertha to clear the old lumber mill of ferals for future settlers. A sole remaining trapper had claimed the mill as his own, but Bertha’s friends should have no trouble chasing him off.

We found Confessor Martin’s private… hermitage, I suppose. According to the tapes we found, Martin truly did have an amicable relationship with the strange synth that had welcomed them to their new home. He blamed himself for not realizing how bad Far Harbor’s hostility had become, and then blamed Dima when his own people turned against him because of Dima’s refusal to help drive the Harbormen off the island. Martin demanded Dima leave the Nucleus, and then when Tektus took over with his calls for blood, Martin retreated into seclusion. A few written notes revealed he was visited by Sister Gwyneth, early in her doubts. He started to believe she was right, and never regained his faith, quietly disappearing.

We returned to Acadia, our prize in hand. Dima was alone in his observatory. It was a… tense, moment. Neither brother was exactly certain how to interact with the other.

“You’ve returned,” Dima said, with some small surprise.

“We said we would. Will these suffice?” I handed him the tapes.

“Yes, these look like they’ll serve. Let me listen…” he smiled softly to himself, “It’s good to hear his voice aga- ah. Some… grim material to work with.” After a few moments, he had copied excerpts onto a new tape. “I take no pleasure from twisting the words of an old friend, but I believe Martin would understand. This tape should pique the interest of the High Confessor, but Tektus is nothing if not wary.”

“It’s not the first time I’ve set a trap,” I took the new tape. “How are preparations coming along for a replacement?”

“The initial stages have gone well. He should be ready in time.” Dima hesitated, but asked, “You said something when we last spoke, when you agreed to this plan. My mind keeps coming back to it… ‘In some corner of Hell, he’s laughing at me.’ May I ask…”

“The Director of the Institute.”

Dima was stunned, “I don’t understand.”

“The Institute used whatever means to their end, no matter the cost, the collateral damage caused. There were no questions of ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ only ‘necessary.’ Unfortunately, the wrong of destroying a person often leads to the right of saving many.”

“… and the wrong of letting a person live who shouldn’t?”

“We’re going to find out, aren’t we?” 

He winced. “So the Director is dead. And the Institute?”

“Destroyed.”

“Then it’s over?” Relief and hope filled him, “No more Courser hunts? No more slavery? Oh, but…” as suddenly as it seemed to come, the hope faded to something sadder. “But that also means the technology to make synths is lost. Our origins have been buried. Not to mention, the loss of human life…” He glanced at us both with some chagrin, “I know that must sound disingenuous given my actions, but -”

“I sounded an evacuation before it was destroyed,” I said. “Everyone had a chance to get out. Not all of them did. It’s a truth I have to live with, that I don’t think I’ll ever forget.”

Dima glanced at Valentine, “Nor should anyone.” He sighed, “I’m sorry if I sounded as though I was judging you. You’ve wiped out a great evil in the world, and knowing the Institute is gone will bring peace of mind to many of my people. I’m grateful.”

We were invited to stay the night before going to the Nucleus in the morning. I think he hoped to have a chance to speak to Valentine, and so I resolved to be close by and listen in, just in case. My partner wasn’t going to make it easy on him. And yet, for all his doubts, Valentine still wants to know his brother, this piece of family he never knew he might have had.

So it was with some false flippancy that he answered a simple, “How have you been, Nick?” with “Haven’t woken up discovering any new missing parts in a while, so I call that a win.”

Dima smiled. “I stopped counting the number of repairs I had decades ago. I have bad actuators, frayed wires…”

Whether innate sibling rivalry, or simple relief at a safe topic, Valentine continued the list, “Rusty joints, patched power couplings, and don’t even get my secretary started whenever I tell her I literally have a screw loose.”

Dima chuckled, “You know, it’s actually pretty nice being able to complain about this with someone who understands.”

Valentine nodded, “Yeah. Yeah, it is.” Silence settled a moment before Valentine asked, “Dima, why do you even call me Nick? Didn’t you know me from before the personality imprint?”

“We didn’t have names inside the Institute. And after the personality experiments started, the only name you ever called yourself was Nick Valentine. If there’s another name you’d prefer, I’d be happy to -”

“No. No, I… I like the name. When you wear something for a long time, it kind of seeps into ya, you know?”

“Of course. And yet your… friend, only calls you Valentine.”

“Habit. Calls me Nick when it’s important. So, what happened after the Institute? To you, I mean.”

“After our escape, I eventually made my way here, simply wandering North, hiding on a ship, anything to get as far away from the Institute as I could. Once my escape felt secured, I was left with nothing. No programmed task, no false memories. I spent a year just sitting in a cave. Just sitting. One day, it finally occurred that maybe I could decide for myself what to do, who I was. It was decades before I met another of my kind. At first, I didn’t believe it. I thought the person I was talking to was deluded. And then I realized the truth. That we were the same. I didn’t know it then, but that’s when Acadia really started. And you, Nick? What happened after?”

“Woke up one day in a garbage heap, a body in tatters and a head full of memories belonging to a man who’d been dead for 200 years. Suffice to say it was a confusing couple of weeks.”

“I am sorry -”

“I know. I was still confused, you didn’t want to hurt me, but… anyway. My first human contact in the world was actually a kid. I think his name was Jim. Grilled me for an hour. Once they’d seen I wasn’t going to hurt anyone, the other folks in the neighborhood came out to ogle the mechanical man. It eventually turned into a pretty swell soiree. Local mechanic even gave me a once over, free of charge. Those people, they treated me like a human being. I’ve been trying to return the favor ever since.”

“That sounds wonderful. It's… not what I expected.”

“Don’t get me wrong, took me a long damn time to get a feel for the Commonwealth. Eventually made my way to Diamond City. Plenty of people assumed I was just a saboteur, moving in to melt down the reactor or poison the drinking water. But they couldn’t exactly turn me away.”

“Why?”

“Because I’d rescued the mayor’s daughter.”

I softly laughed. “I’ll never tire of hearing this story,” I said to Faraday behind me. “As you’ve been standing there a few minutes, I imagine you’d like to hear the rest?”

He sounded a bit embarrassed. “I was going to ask if you were spying again. I suppose you were, but not quite like I thought. I have to say, I hoped Nick would come back. Dima really is glad to see him again. But I don’t quite understand why you want to help.”

“I am a man of my word, and I am not in the habit of abandoning those in need.”

We listened for a time. “Did he really pretend to be a bomb?” Faraday asked.

“So he says.”

“No one could be stupid enough to fall for that.”

“Clearly you haven’t met many raiders.”

“Um. Well, no, I guess I haven’t.”

We were joined by Chase. “What in the world are you two doing?”

We moved away before we could be discovered. “We didn’t want to interrupt!” Faraday protested.

Chase rolled her eyes and turned to me, “You’re a detective, right? You’ve had experience finding missing people.”

There is a certain comfort that comes with the anticipation of a case. “What’s happened?”

“A synth was supposed to arrive from the Commonwealth, but he’s gone missing. Brooks in Far Harbor has all the details, he’s the one who was supposed to watch for his arrival. Tell him I sent you.”

Valentine and Dima were still talking. The sun would be setting by the time I reached Far Harbor; hardly an ideal time to track down a missing person, but given the dangers of the island, there was no time to waste. I resolved to head into town at least, and see what Brooks could tell me. I left Valentine to catch up with his brother. I didn’t know if it would help or not, but I think it’s important he get some sense of the old synth on the mountain… and, more importantly, that Dima gets a sense of the sort of man his brother is.

I hurried into Far Harbor and found Brooks cleaning up. The missing synth, a young man called Derrick, had arrived ahead of schedule in a panic. Brooks tried to calm him down but Derrick, convinced he was being pursued, ran off. Brooks was unable to stop him, or find him when he disappeared. He feels terrible about it. The only information he could give me was that Derrick had white hair and had run off down the south road.

“Then I suppose I’ll head south,” I sighed.

“Sure you want to be out an’ about in the dark, cap'n?”

I turned and saw Longfellow approaching from the Last Plank, a bottle of whiskey in hand. “The sun hasn’t set just yet, and if there’s the slightest chance that he is still alive we must move quickly.”

“We?”

“If I had my dog with me, tracking Derrick down would be simple, sunshine or no,” I grinned, “but I’d gladly take a septuagenarian hunter instead.”

“Hmph,” he seemed amused, I think, though honestly it’s hard to tell. “And where’s your friend?”

“Acadia. He’s catching up with his brother, I didn’t want to interrupt.”

“Brother, huh?” Longfellow was supremely skeptical, but shrugged and said, “Brooks, watch this for me.” He put his whiskey on the counter, “I’ll be back as soon as this young pup makes a fool of himself tracking at night.”

I did not, in fact, make a fool of myself. To the contrary, Longfellow was impressed with my ability to observe details, and only corrected me once when I confused the blood trail of a wounded radstag with the trail of blood we’d been following. Given the nature of the trail, I knew the young man was likely dead… but nothing prepared me for the grisly nature of his fate.   
We tracked him to a house where trappers had set up camp. They’d eaten him, and left his head among the remains. 

The Institute was gone, what had he been running from? A lone Courser? The Brotherhood? An imagined foe born from paranoia? Whatever the reason for Derrick’s fear, Brooks had been in no position to stop his flight, through no fault of his own. How many people have died coming here, trying to reach a place of refuge?

Longfellow was grim, “Damn shame. Suppose you’ll let Acadia know?”

“Yes. Will you tell Brooks?”

“I’ll tell him. He’ll probably blame himself. I’ll see to him, don’t worry.”

I thanked him, and hurried back to Acadia. Chase was distressed to hear the news. This does, in fact, happen often. I don’t mean the cannibalism, specifically, but synths being killed en route to Acadia. The island is a death trap for those ill prepared. This place doesn’t need ideals of peace and isolation, it needs practical help for the physical challenges of survival.

 

Valentine just found me. I’d managed to find an empty spot to sleep for the night, and was writing the above as he sat down next to me.

“You snuck out on me,” he said, perhaps a touch put out.

“I didn’t want to interrupt. I found Longfellow in town.”

“Just want to make sure you get home in one piece,” he held my hand. “Chase mentioned something about finding a missing synth?”

I told him what I’d found. He shook his head with a heavy sigh. “This place…”

“Acadia is a worthy idea severely lacking in execution.”

“Considering what they’ve got to work with, it’s amazing they’ve got this much.” It was true, the resources are limited, the neighbors unfriendly… “If only there were some sort of organization that could lend a helping hand,” he finished sardonically.

I chuckled, “The thought had crossed my mind, but would Dima accept help?”

“It’ll be a surprise, that’s for sure. He’s not fond of the Railroad, doesn’t understand why they’d remove synth identities instead of embracing them, but no one here knows what the Minutemen under their current management are about.”

“It is a bit out of our jurisdiction,” I said with a grin, “but perhaps some trade could be set up at the very least. Did you enjoy talking to him?”

“It was… nice. Strange. He was alone on this rock for a long time before he met another person. He’s… removed from a lot of life. Most of what he knows about the Commonwealth is second-hand knowledge, what he’s heard and stored in his memory banks. I think he got more out of the conversation than I did, listening to stories about the world. I still can’t quite crack what makes him tick.”

“Beyond protecting his people?”

“Protecting is fine and good, but every time he mentions ideals and synths having their own culture and way of life… well, that would be nice, but it’ll take a long time for that to happen. Not sure the people here are as in it for the long haul as Dima is… or as willing to do whatever it takes to make it happen.”

There certainly seems to be a disconnect. We’ll find out soon enough if it’s all worth it.


	9. Helping Acadia

Chase’s request for help spurred some courage in Faraday, who timidly asked if, since I was going out anyway, I might retrieve some storage drives from a crashed boat to the southwest, not too far from the Nucleus. I agreed, and was promptly approached by Cog, a synth who deals in limited junk trade and maintains a rather nihilistic approach to existence. Yet for someone who claims not to care about anything, he shows a remarkable amount of concern for a woman called Jule. Jule is the victim of a botched mind wipe. She oscillates between personalities, and has terrible nightmares of a burning boat. She has a key in her possession; she doesn’t know what it unlocks, but is certain it’s important. Cog is certain her nightmares have something to do with the boat to the southwest. I agreed to look into it.

Valentine had resumed his conversation with Dima in the observatory. After a night of catching up on the past, the present had become the topic of the morning.

“What do you think of Acadia, Nick?” Dima asked.

“Well, living in a scientific observatory wouldn’t exactly be high on my list of comfortable spots. At least that Fog is far enough below.”

“I was talking more about our ideals. Synths as their own way of life. Not hiding from what they are.”

“Kind of easy for you to say that, though, isn’t it? You and I, we can’t pretend to be anything else.”

“That just means we’re in the perfect position to help our kind. We can be the example in the face of adversity.”

“I’m not looking to be anyone’s example. You help who needs help. It doesn’t have to be more than that.”

“Well said,” I hid my smile as I entered the room. Dima immediately shifted his attention. He still doesn’t quite know what to make of me. Fitting, as I feel exactly the same about him. “Valentine, I’m retrieving some storage drives for Faraday before insinuating myself into the Nucleus, are you coming with?”

“Sure. Can’t wait to see how many rads you bathe in this time.”

“One question before you go, Mr. Holmes?” Dima said. “I am curious - what do you think of Acadia?”

“I think the idea of Acadia is a good one, a place synths can be safe, but what sort of future can they have here? How will the world ever know that synths are just like everyone else if they never see them? There can’t be any acceptance without exposure.”

“Exposure has led to the death of a great many.”

“So has trying to come here, not to put too fine a point on it. Synths taste just like humans, at least according to the trappers who recently ate one.”

He was appalled, “What!”

“Ask Chase. You need help, Dima. If you won’t accept the Railroad as an ally, then perhaps the Minutemen can do something. I can’t spread them too thin, things are hardly under control in the Commonwealth, but at least a few people to help get new synths here safely, engineer some proper lights in this place. You can talk all you want about ideals, but in the end everyone here is only human, whether of the synthetic variety or not.”

As I turned and walked out, I heard Valentine softly laugh, “And that’s why I love him.” It took a great deal of effort to halt the grin that threatened to spread across my face. He assured Dima we’d be back and caught up to me easily, a brief touch on my shoulder, “Threw him for a loop back there.”

“Good. The storage drives are on a crashed boat in a harbor the southwest. I imagine it will be crawling with trappers.”

We were not disappointed. The trappers had taken over most of the town, but fortunately the trail of fire still burning off the fuel in the water made it easy to find the right boat. In addition to the storage drives, the boat held a chest. The key Jule had given me fit. Inside was a note from someone called Victoria, mentioning her unease at Faraday’s request she steer the boat containing the storage drives he needed. I packed the storage drives and the note into my bag, and moved on toward the Nucleus.

“I’m gonna go out on a limb and say there’s more to this little business than just collecting storage drives for Dima’s boyfriend,” Valentine said.

“Very possibly. We’ll find out more when we get back to Acadia. First, I’d like to make an appearance with the Children of Atom and see what small tasks I can perform to gain the Confessor’s trust.”

I reported to the Grand Zealot to let him know Sister Gwyneth wouldn’t be causing any more disturbances. He assumed I’d killed her. I did not disabuse him of this notion. We made our way around the base, talking with people and subtly making my presence known. A cheerful woman called Mai who runs a supply shop was more than happy to talk to ‘Atom’s Chosen,’ as apparently word of my hallucination has spread. Mai sold me a few doses of Radaway (commonly used by Children who haven’t been ‘blessed’ with inherent radiation immunity, or as an act of penitence called ‘scouring’) and mentioned a personal project of hers to fix the decontamination arches at the entrance to the base. Her idea is to make them ‘contamination arches’ as it were, dosing the Children with radiation, but she is missing the necessary parts. I offered to lend a hand, and made my way out of the Nucleus.

We’ll retrieve the parts Mai needs, certainly, but first I wanted to return to Acadia. Perhaps it was talk of missing parts, but I suddenly knew exactly where I needed to look to learn what happened to Jule. Faraday’s lab terminal held a record of an emergency surgery performed on a young woman named Victoria who was in a horrible boat crash. For some reason, the equivalent of a mind-wipe was deemed ‘absolutely necessary.’ The entry ends with the statement, “We’ll do our best to look after Jule, of course… we owe her that much.”

Faraday and I have very different definitions of ‘looking after.’

I delivered the storage drives. He was thankful, though a bit puzzled. “Only two? I could have sworn there were three…”

“Well, there was a locked chest on the boat, perhaps the third was inside.”

“Oh! Um. Well, nevermind, then. Thank you for this…” he trailed off as I set the third on the table.

“I know what you did to Jule. Or perhaps I should say, what you did to Victoria.”

He paled, and then he panicked. “What? Oh. Oh no… ok, look, I’m not even going to complain that you’ve been snooping around in terminals -”

“You mustn’t take it personal, Faraday, I go through the terminals of everyone I don’t trust. Explain what happened.”

“I know how this looks, but you have to understand, we did the best we could! The boat crashed, she was beyond injured. We did what we could, but the only way to get her past the trauma was to try a wipe. I don’t have Institute-level technology here. There were complications. And now… Well, now she’s Jule. She’s broken, but she’s alive.”

“That’s no excuse for leaving her in the state she’s in.”

“We had the chance to save her life, and we took it. Did whatever we had to. And I constantly second-guess that decision. But the other option was to let her die. And it’s always so easy to look back and judge.” He sighed, “I swear to you, I wanted better for her. I really did. Please, don’t say anything to her. I can live with the guilt; she shouldn’t have to.”

I believe that had he framed the request in almost any other fashion, I would have been more receptive. “Guilt?” I challenged. “What guilt would she live with? I expect she would have to live with anger, betrayal, even hatred, but guilt? No, sir, the guilt is entirely yours. That woman suffers horrific nightmares of screaming as she is engulfed in flames, constantly stuck in a mental battleground between personalities, because of a botched operation of which she has no memory!”

He winced, but persevered in his stubborn refusal to see the point, “What good will telling her the truth do?”

“Oh, for the love of… What have you done to fix this mess? She knows she’s the victim of a mind wipe, have you offered to help her? I am fully aware she’s difficult to interact with, but have you tried anything to make her situation better?” By the confusion on his face, the answer was no. I’d had enough. “By god, Faraday, if you don’t get your head out of your computer screens and start giving a damn about the people you’re supposed to be helping, I’ll lead the charge on Acadia myself!”

I stormed out. In hindsight, it was not the best reaction I could have had. I made it outside and down the steps before I stopped, feeling a bit ridiculous.

“You ok, partner?” Valentine softly said behind me.

I took a breath. “Where would she go? How far would she make it on her own? She already knows she’s the victim of a botched mind wipe, at least here Cog can look after her. That man is the poorest excuse for a nihilist I’ve ever seen.”

“Doesn’t seem right, keeping the truth from her. Feels like we’ve been doing an awful lot of that, lately.”

“We can congratulate ourselves on doing the right thing and watch a woman run, or we say nothing with the knowledge that maybe she could be helped one day. As soon as we’re home, I’m going to let Desdemona know about this place. If ever the Railroad needed a presence somewhere, it’s here, and damn whatever Dima might think of it. Perhaps Dr. Amari has suggestions for some sort of therapy for mind wipes gone wrong.” I sighed, and resumed the task at hand. “Come on, Valentine, let’s see to Sister Mai’s repairs.”

We returned to the Nucleus, parts in hand, and went to work on the arches. Sister Mai was confused as to why her modifications seemed not to work, but mused that at least this would save people some time while scouring. Tomorrow I will present myself to High Confessor Tektus and see what other service Atom’s Chosen can provide.


	10. Peace

Confessor Tektus was pleased to hear about the work I’ve done to support the Children of Atom, and confided that there are some among the Children he suspects are disloyal to the ‘family.’ One woman was of particular concern - Sister Aubert, the caretaker of the Children’s crypt. He asked me to determine whether or not she was faithful.

She is indeed critical of Tektus, and with good reason. I discovered that Tektus had her lover killed for being a supporter of Confessor Martin. I was suddenly much less reluctant to carry out Dima’s plan to replace him. I assured him that Sister Aubert was perfectly loyal. He was surprised, but he believed me.

My confidence bolstered by his willingness to accept my word, I ventured a small mention of ‘Martin’s tape.’ Tektus demanded I play it, and was aghast that Martin was alive, after all. Dima’s trick had worked. Tektus agreed to meet me within the Command Center tunnels to discuss the matter without any other Children overhearing. As I left the Confessor’s quarters, I signaled to Valentine below that he stay put. He glanced up at me and frowned, but nodded and continued his conversation with Ware.

And so I hid in the tunnels and waited. I didn’t have to wait long.

“Are you certain you weren’t followed?”

Tektus nodded, “You needn’t worry. Martin has no ears down here. Now, what can you tell me?”

It wasn’t Martin I was worried about, but for the first time I wondered why exactly Tektus was so concerned. “Why are you so afraid of Martin?”

He scoffed, with what was either false bravado or zealous certainty, “Afraid? It is not fear, child. Martin, he was the fearful one. Unwilling to stand up to Far Harbor, to fight for this land. I am the only one willing to do what is necessary to keep this family safe. And I will not allow him to put this place in jeopardy again. Now. Your tape. Did Martin give it to you or did you find it elsewhere? Please, I must know.”

I shook my head, “Neither. It’s over, Tektus. Dima sent me to kill you, and I will if you force my hand, but enough blood has been spilt on this island. If you agree to leave and never come back, I’ll let you live.”

“You’re working for… you’re not bluffing, are you?” His shock turned to anger, “There is no place beyond his reach on this island, is there?” He sighed, frustrated but resigned to his fate. “Fine. The… the damned machine will have what it wishes.”

I made certain Tektus truly did leave the Nucleus, his departure discrete. I suppose there is a slim chance he might try to return, but he seemed convinced of Dima’s control from the shadows. When Valentine and I returned to Acadia, we saw for ourselves just how much of the fate of this island lies in the hands of one individual.

High Confessor Tektus stood before Dima, softly describing a powerful vision from Atom he had received. Atom, it seems, wants peace on the island. The new Tektus thanked Dima for watching over him while he was under Atom’s sway. Dima was more than gracious, urging him to come to Acadia whenever he needed assistance. It was a surreal scene.

After the new Tektus left, I told Dima the old one ran and won’t be coming back. Dima was… not disappointed, but skeptical.

“Not an ideal solution, perhaps, but the result is the same.”

I remained emotionless for the moment. “Ideal?”

“It would be more secure if there was no chance of his return.”

“Acadia would be more secure if there was no chance of Far Harbor gathering their pitchforks and shotguns, and yet you seemed upset by the very possibility of destroying them.”

“You know, I’m starting to envy you, Dima,” Valentine said, his arms crossed. “This whole thing makes me wish I could remove my memories, too.”

“But I won’t,” Dima said, “not of all of this. I promised. This was necessary. Now peace can come to the island, Far Harbor and the Children of Atom can coexist, under our guidance.”

“Your benevolent rule?” I asked, a bit more snide than was perhaps necessary.

“I know you doubt my intentions, and I admit you have every reason to. But all I’ve ever wanted was a place of safety for my people. With Far Harbor and the Children living in peace, that can finally happen, without any more loss of life.”

I sighed, “And you believe the new Tektus is truly going to act the way you planned?”

“I’ve done this before, remember?” he said with a small sad smile. “I gave him all the best of Tektus, and Martin. His gentle voice will guide the new High Confessor. Drop by the Nucleus if you can, he’ll want to see you.”

I was doubtful. I did want to know what the Children of Atom would think of this new change in their leader, and so I went back to the Nucleus, arriving just in time to see the synth who is now Tektus addressing his flock. The reactions to this vision of Atom were mixed, ranging from surprised but simple acceptance to justification; what does Atom need with a tiny dock, let them keep it. Yet, I heard very little outright dissent. This may actually work. The High Confessor was glad to see me, as Dima had suggested. Apparently, I was in his vision, standing beside the radiance of Atom himself. Dima has a macabre sense of humor.

Now that matters concerning the fate of the people on this island were settled, we could finally return to our original purpose in coming to this place. Kasumi Nakano had spent a great deal of time thinking while Valentine and I had been busy. She’d come to an important decision, not just about her nature, but how she wanted to live.

“I hurt Kenji and Rei by leaving, didn’t I?” she asked me. “I could’ve just stayed home, pretended everything was all right, but I left them. Should I go back? They obviously still care about me… or who they think I am… They need a daughter. They deserve to have one…” She was distressed, and perhaps uncertain, but sincere in her desire to do what was right. “Everything in Acadia has been settled. I found my answers. Maybe it’s time I did something for someone else.”

It was a sentiment I agreed with in general, and yet… “What are you talking about?”

“I know the real Kasumi is dead. She was replaced with me. But do Kenji and Rei really need to know that? What if we could be a family again? All I have to do is go home. Give them the daughter they thought they lost. Don’t I owe them that?”

I sighed, and tried to speak as gently as I could. It was oddly not unlike talking to Shaun, despite this young woman being nine years older than him. “Kasumi. You do not ‘owe’ anyone anything. If this is what you want, it should be because you want to be a family, not because you feel obligated. That being said, you’re their daughter to them, and it’s obvious you love them. Does it really matter if you’re a synth or not?”

“Doesn’t it? That idea is always going to be there, somewhere in the back of my mind.” She smiled then, with some forced hope. “But I’m real enough, aren’t I? Maybe that’s all anyone can be sure of.”

“Perhaps you’re right,” I smiled back. “You’re a brave young woman, Miss Nakano. If this is truly what you want, then Valentine and I will be glad to escort you home. As much as is possible for a boat to escort another, at least.”

She nodded, some soft humor on her face, “I need to start packing, and I should start saying goodbye to everyone… Thank you. For everything.”

I left her to collect her few things and went upstairs to the observatory. Valentine was also saying goodbye.

“You would be welcome to stay in Acadia if you wanted,” Dima offered hopefully.

Valentine declined gracefully, “Thanks, but we’ve got our own place back in Diamond City, not to mention the Agency.”

“Still, it must be difficult to live among humans.”

Valentine shrugged, “You never quite get used to the suspicious faces, the occasional solid object thrown. But Diamond City’s my home. It’s got its flaws, sure, but it beats the hell out of anywhere else in the Commonwealth. Though nowadays Sanctuary is a close second. A lot of the people are friendly, and a few of them are my friends. Now I’ve… I’ve even got a family waiting at home,” he smiled, “and I don’t think Holmes would agree to bringing our son here.”

Dima blinked. “Your… … what?”

I chose that moment to interrupt. “Kasumi’s preparing to leave, Valentine. I thought it would be wise to follow her. Are you ready to go?”

“Sure, sure. Goodbye, Dima.”

“Nick, wait -”

“I’ll see you again.”

“… Do you mean that?”

“Someone’s gotta keep an eye on you. So long.”

Dima laughed softly. “Goodbye, brother.”

Captain Avery was addressing the town as we reached Far Harbor. Everyone was amazed at the Children’s change of heart. The Lees are still suspicious, but as long as no more ‘preachers’ come to town, I doubt they’ll find anyone willing to listen anymore. Avery was certain I was behind the peace, though she doesn’t know the details. She thanked me for saving the people of Far Harbor, for giving them hope and courage to retake their homes. She’s fully aware that it is going to take a lot of work to keep the peace, but she is more than willing to try.

Longfellow was skeptical. “Sure, there’s peace with the Children of Atom now, but how long will it last?”

“Only one way to find out,” I said.

“Hmph. If you knew half of what those lunatics have done…” he sighed, “well, I ain’t happy about it, but I guess we’ll have to wait it out. And now you’re headed back to the Commonwealth, are ya?”

“We’ll see Miss Nakano home, and then it’s high time we went home ourselves.”

“Well, if you ever get an urge to come back, you know where to find me, cap’n.”

I shook his hand with a grin, “I do, and I will, Longfellow. Thank you for all your help.”

And so we set off. We reached the Nakano residence shortly after Kasumi. She stood in front of the door, nervous.

“Is this truly what you want?” I asked.

“What? Of course it is -”

“I don’t mean coming home. I mean keeping the possibility that you are a synth secret.”

“Maybe… maybe someday I can tell them. But right now, I just want to be home.”

I couldn’t argue. The joy and relief on her parents’ faces, on Kasumi’s face, made this whole ordeal of a case worth it. When Kenji thanked us for saving his family, I warned him to listen to his daughter next time. Rei conspiratorially assured me she would keep Kenji from becoming overbearing. And Kasumi… she seemed happy. She was happy, though it was perhaps a bittersweet happiness.

“The kid’s certain she’s a synth,” Valentine quietly said to me as we took our leave.

“I know, but who am I to reveal that to her parents? She’ll resettle, hopefully Kenji will hold to his promise to really listen to his daughter, and perhaps one day she’ll decide to tell them the truth about herself… or she won’t. It’s her decision.”

He sighed. “Well, at least the family’s back together, and they know to contact us if they need anything. Never had a case so… strange.”

“Never, Valentine?”

“Well, there was the time I got hired by a guy who’d been frozen in a vault for two hundred years. That one was a doozy.”

“It turned out well, I hope?”

He smiled, “Better than I could have dreamed.” After a moment, he asked, “Do you think he meant it, Dima’s promise not to forget? He’s got his fingers all over the island, is he…”

“I can’t answer whether your brother is a good man at heart or a monster. Perhaps he’s a bit of both. There’s an easy way to find out if he keeps his promise or not, and regular visits to Acadia would give him the additional benefit of exposure to one of the best men I’ve ever known.”

“Hm, a guy could get used to having someone around to sing his praises. This whole partnership thing may work out.”

I grinned, and took his hand. “I certainly hope so.”


End file.
